HSW Client Julian Assange Regains His Freedom in Historic Plea Deal Negotiated by Barry Pollack

July 1, 2024

Harris St. Laurent & Wechsler partner Barry J. Pollack led the negotiations that secured the release from custody of his long-time client, Julian Assange, former editor of WikiLeaks. Assange was freed from a British prison under a historic plea deal that concludes the criminal case against him in the United States after more than 14 years of legal battles. Assange spent the last five years in a high-security London prison while the U.S. sought his extradition to face charges of violating the U.S. Espionage Act and conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. The maximum penalty for those charges was 175 years in prison.

The case concluded on June 24, when Assange pleaded guilty to a single count of violating the Espionage Act. He appeared before a judge in the Northern Mariana Islands — a self-governing U.S. territory in the western Pacific — where he was sentenced to time served. Under the agreement, the case against him will be dismissed, and he will not be charged with any other offenses in the U.S. He has since returned to his home country of Australia.

Pollack worked with a multinational group of dedicated lawyers. He led a U.S. team that included HSW partner Julie Withers and Carmichael Ellis & Brock founding partner Jessica Carmichael. The international team included Australia- and U.K.-based lawyer and barrister Jennifer Robinson, U.K. solicitor Gareth Peirce and U.K. barristers Edward Fitzgerald and Mark Summers and their outstanding teams.

Pollack is widely recognized as one of the leading trial lawyers in the U.S. He represents corporations and individuals, including business professionals and high-ranking state and federal government officials, in sensitive and often headline-making criminal and government investigations, enforcement actions, criminal trials, complex commercial litigation and internal investigations. Pollack is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, a Fellow of the American Board of Criminal Lawyers, and a past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.